My Vet has been leaning towards this for Astro. Sort of a mental illness for dogs.

His urine is a bit dilute. He has ruled out other things like Diabetes Insipidus, Cushings, etc. through blood tests, urine tests and kidney analysis tests. I think his numbers are 10/5 and they should be 10/15.

It seems he is OCD about drinking water. I attribute it to his not having water available unless it was his one meal time.

He literally plops himself in front of the water dish and takes sips all day. He also holds his urine in for HOURS, (again, he was in a crate for 10 hours a day and then let out for 10 minutes and put back in the crate).

I was trying to figure out what this "issue" was called, I knew it had a term. Sophia is the same way, very obsessed. Everytime a bowl is filled she thinks that it is her job to drink it all, plus she has a very weak bladder...bad combo. I feel bad, but I have to limit her drinking or she just won't stop. Jen, what do you do with Mac? Do you stop him?

Just a thought...my last foster was always thirsty, we couldn't figure out why. Turns out he had a load of plastic (had eaten it before coming to me) in his stomach that he couldn't pass, yet since it was only a partial, his symptoms weren't so obvious. Drinking the water kept the plastic afloat and was less painful on his stomach. At least, thats what the surgeon who removed the obstruction hypothesized.

Mac is on strict NILIF and he MUST perform a trick or task before he's "allowed" to drink. Since we've been doing this with him for years now, he'll go and sit in front of the bathroom door (he's a messy drinker so the bowl is in the bathroom because the tile is easier to clean up) and wait for the "OK" from one of us. It's usually something like "sit up", then "paw", then the "OK" release. If he goes straight to the bowl and starts drinking without permission, he gets pulled away and sent to another room for a time out.

We also have Mac on a pretty strict schedule. He gets a drink in the morning before breakfast, another one an hour after breakfast, another around noon, then 3-ish, and around dinner time. Last one is right after his walk before bed.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn't once you get used to it. It's also quality training time with Mac, and he LOVES his "water reward".

Drinking the water kept the plastic afloat and was less painful on his stomach. At least, thats what the surgeon who removed the obstruction hypothesized.

That's interesting. And does sound plausible.

When Mac was less than a year old, he had a full-on intestinal blockage caused by a tennis ball that he swallowed whole. He couldn't eat without barfing it right back up, but he would STILL drink as much as he could get. It would come right back up, but that didn't stop him.

Never make someone a priority in your life when that someone treats you like an option.

Sophia sounds a lot like Mac. She is a great dog, just with a lot of "quirks"...which is kinda why she's been here for almost 10 months now. As sweet as she is, not too many adopters are necessarily looking for a dog who rides the short bus...and even less meet my standards.

Hopefully this is still on topic here...Jen & Joyce, do your boys have any food issues? Just wondering if there is a connection b/c Sophia did have some mild food aggression when she first came here. I chalked it up to not being consistently fed in her prior home, kinda like the water issue at first, but something that was definately fixable. We've worked on it a lot, and she has done really well. She no longer postures or gets nervous about people taking away her food (or bones) however, she is still a terrible gulper. No matter what I do, the dog inhales her food. Oh, and her latest thing is licking the floor obsessively.

Mac's major problem is that he's too damn smart -- like scary smart. I am POSITIVE he's going to just start talking one day.

He does/did have some food issues, but it's more resource guarding than anything else. He doesn't gulp his food because he's too busy watching everyone out of the corners of his eyes, LOL. Have you tried a treat ball to feed Sophia? Or maybe putting her food in a tray with some large rocks or bricks so that she has to work at getting the food?

The best thing we ever did for Mac was put him on a consistent schedule. Everything is done at the same time every single day. His stress level is FAR lower and he's more pleasant to deal with (for the most part). He loses his mind if his schedule is "off".

Never make someone a priority in your life when that someone treats you like an option.

Jen, its funny that you mention a schedule b/c Sophia definately is much less anxious during the week days when our schedule is tight and consistent. During the weekends, she gets so bent out of shape if I'm not up and ready for feeding time! We affectionately call her "tap shoes" b/c she'll pace the room and huff and puff until I get out of bed. She knows her routine to a tee, to the point where she runs to the crate as soon as I put a her yogurt in her bowl, since that is usually the last step of food prep.

I've fed her with things in her bowl, fed her by hand and even tried feeding in a muffin pan (someone recommended this to me b/c it takes longer to get the food out of each compartment) but she just doesn't seem to get it. I just assumed by now she'd realize that she gets 2 meals everyday and I won't deprive her!

nicole wrote:We affectionately call her "tap shoes" b/c she'll pace the room and huff and puff until I get out of bed.

If we're not running on schedule, Mac starts with a really low grumbling growly noise which gets louder and louder the longer he has to wait. He'll end up with a growl-bark and start doing his tricks just to see if we're paying attention, LOL. All this is done in his crate since that is where he's fed.

Never make someone a priority in your life when that someone treats you like an option.

nicole wrote:We affectionately call her "tap shoes" b/c she'll pace the room and huff and puff until I get out of bed.

If we're not running on schedule, Mac starts with a really low grumbling growly noise which gets louder and louder the longer he has to wait. He'll end up with a growl-bark and start doing his tricks just to see if we're paying attention, LOL. All this is done in his crate since that is where he's fed.

So, it's very interesting that this topic has come up when it has. Last week when I went to the vet, I also took Cy with me. He was due for a regular check up, rabies vaccine, etc. Well, lately, he has been drinking an awful lot of water. I keep 2.5 gallon buckets of water outside for the dogs. I put new water in every morning and afternoon. Over the past 2 weeks, Cy will go out there, only at night, and drink half the bucket. Then vomit. He doesn't seem to pee more, though.

He's never drank this much water before, even when he was on prednisone. I mentioned this to Chuck, so he suggested we run a "senior" blood panel (he's and a urine test. Well, all the blood came back fine, but his urine came back with a very low specific gravity (very diluted).

Chuck suggested that we go ahead and actually run the tests for Cushing's, and another urine test on him. With Cy's history of medical care (or lack thereof), Chuck thought it would be best to test for things that could cause polydipsia. But, he also said that Cy could be suffering from canine psychogenic polydipsia...

Sophie used to have that, but only when she was on steroids. It was out of control and SCARY. She would drink like crazy and vomit it back up all the time, and she had a weakening of her urethral sphincter that she was on meds for already, and it made her wet herself even more. She would turn into this ravenous "water monster" and it was all that she could ever think about. We would find her in the kitchen staring wistfully at the sink. We ended up having to put her on a drinking schedule too, poor girl. It made her quality of life horrid and she needed steroids as her treatment for paralysis, it's part of why we made the decision to put her down. It's a scary disease and I'm sorry you guys have to deal with it, but at least it doesn't sound as bad as Sophie's was.

I've been dealing with this for a long time now. Both Dice and Kimber suffer from it to a certain degree. Dice has gotten much better as she's aged and Kimber has improved as well but we still have to manage their water before long periods of crating and neither can be left loose home alone or there will be a wet floor when we return. They both still periodically will drink till they look as though they are pregnant. Dice has always been able to hold it if she's crated but Kimber has not. Turns out after an ultrasound that she has a bladder that sits further back than normal. So when it fills, there is a lot of pressure from her pelvis, hence the need to urinate a lot. I get to change a lot of crate bedding

We tried ONCE to treat Mac's allergies Prednisone. We started him on the smallest dose possible and within two pills he got SO much worse with his water consumption! He was shoving the other dogs out of the way of the water bowl, he was guarding anything that remotely looked like it *might* contain water, and he started getting very aggressive when we tried to keep him on his water schedule. Never again will he get Pred.

Never make someone a priority in your life when that someone treats you like an option.